In Game Advertisments

[StVald]

Hey, before you take this the wrong way and feel in game ads are an invasion of your privacy please consider this:

Owning a game server is not cheap. SST may be shut down soon because donations just aren't cutting it. I'm wondering if a few things are possible that can help us setup in game advertisements to keep us going. Can the server send modified parts of pk3s that merge with the map pk3s? In this way the server can send ads as textures upon connection and they will be placed in the map files people already have. This would vastly reduce the file size needed to download for ads because you aren't redownloading the map for every new ad. I also wondering if you can download separate sets of geometry (shaped as electronic displays) that can be merged to the maps at specified locations. I hope there is a reversible process for this so we can remove the ads when you disconnect from SST. Of course, we will ask the map designers for permission and make sure this process follows map copyright or liscence agreement. In game ads are making big waves, and although some of the player population is showing resistance this can make enough money for server ops to host their server for free, which would be great for clan servers. besides you can choose not to play on a server with ads. Also, someone has told me that with an unpure server such as SST, it is easy to bypass the ads, but what if the ads are always downloaded upon connection so you can't disconnect and remove them?

[Somethief]

Ok thats such bad idea;
1. Modifying game pk3s on fly wont work (Without resending whole packet and that would make connecting longer and mess up the maps) and isn't a good idea atall
2. Who says you cant modify source code so it will ignore ads?
3. Who would play on ad server since there are plenty of free ones?

Can't figure out anything more but other ppl prolly will

[StVald]

People play on SST because of the player count. Sure there are plenty of free servers, but none of them have as high player count as SST. And how exactly would modding the source get rid of specific in game textures. The source affects game play, not map geometry and textures.

[David]

If the maps had pre placed ad locations, like the boards in transit, then server owners could have a ad download and go there. however, who would pay for these ads? big places wont pay for ads unless they are pay per click or going to lots of people, neither of which you can do.

[Greudin]

Found this "spam" script for q3a servers, but cant make it work properly :

Code: [Select]


// This is my console spam script for you to enjoy aswell.  Basically I couldnt find anyone that made something where I could have console say things
// periodically without me running something off my computer will all this crazy anticheat ban stuff.  So here it is, it's not too hard to figure out but
// I put explinations in to make it easier.

// These are the wait timers, its in miliseconds so by using exponential growth you can get long waits with short aliases
// You can change these if you want to make the wait longer, or you can change the code down further with the same effect, whatever makes you smile.
// and yes, the last one doesnt wait 2500 it waits 5000, my math is bad, regardless it waits 5000 no matter what the alias is.

alias w5 "wait;wait;wait;wait;wait"
alias w25 "w5;w5;w5;w5;w5"
alias w100 "w25;w25;w25;w25;w25"
alias w500 "w100;w100;w100;w100;w100"
alias w2500 "w500;w500;w500;w500;w500;w500;w500;w500;w500;w500"

// These are the spam messages, obviously you replace my words with yours, but make sure you leave the quotes
// Get rid of the numbers you dont use, they just make the config bigger

alias 1 say "Welcome to .oD] overDose! The only server gay enough to promote Penguin's wild and unmerciful rcon abuse."
alias 2 say "Welcome to .oD] overDose! Please keep in mind, if scissors begins to run at you madly with his pistol erect, assume the fetal position."
alias 3 say "Welcome to .oD] overDose! Visit www.clanoverdose.com"
alias 4 say "Welcome to .oD] overDose! Please, be as dirty as you possibly can in here. This includes vulgar language and blatant team-killing."
alias 5 say "Welcome to .oD] overDose! Contrary to popular belief, CaJe's name is pronounced ''Cah-Hey,''  and you should address him as such."
alias 6 say "Welcome to .oD] overDose! If your lawn is looking a bit overgrown, don't hesitate to contact Captain-A and his family. They work for free!"
alias 7 say "Welcome to .oD] overDose! If you get hacked by MadMarsh, his IP is 24.130.65.98. Do your worst."
alias 8 say "Welcome to .oD] overDose! The server IP is 70.84.48.45. You must be sick and uninformed if you write it down with intentions of coming back."
alias 9 say "Welcome to .oD] overDose! Server donations are appreciated via Phoon's small penis."

// This is the spam part, also where it gets most confusing. notice how between every w2500 command there is a number, those numbers correspond
// to the alias numbers above for the spam messages.  You set the order of the messages here.  s1 and s2 do not have to do with the spam aliases
// so dont chage those.  make sure when youre done that alias s1 and alias s2 are the same, and that no alias number (1-9 in the original case)
// is called that doesnt have a spam message attached to it.

alias s1 "1; w2500; 2; w2500; 3; w2500; 4; w2500; 5; w2500; 6; w2500; 7; w2500; 8; w2500; 9; w2500; s2"
alias s2 "1; w2500; 2; w2500; 3; w2500; 4; w2500; 5; w2500; 6; w2500; 7; w2500; 8; w2500; 9; w2500; s1"

// These 2 characters start the script, so you dont want to change them.

s1

// When in the server type the command as it appears here:
// rcon exec scissorsspam.cfg
// once its done executing you should see your first message appear instantly, if it doesn't something is wrong so go back and take a look
// as far as maximum length of the message, i really dont know, but its about 300 characters i think
// (none of the above are longer than 140 to give you an idea) so yea.
// and that it! any questions message me on AIM irunwithsciszors. have fun with your spam!

[/code]

[StVald]

Thanks, but text ads wont get us much money. I do have a large in game ad company in mind that can help us, but my biggest concern is getting the ads in side the game.

[StVald]

OK, after talking with many people this seems impossible. But I do hope the devs can get something set up for next trem release to help serevr owners out.

[Shafe]

In game ads for tremulous is the worst idea I've heard in awhile..

Not as if we get bombarded with ads everywhere anyway... spam on forums, email, tv, movies, billboards.. etc..

It annoys me that the game companies are doing this for games you pay for now..   You pay $60 bux for a game and then get bombarded with ads.  Even for a free/open source game it's crap.... It 'feels' contradictary to the whole FOSS philosophy.

I've run game servers on dedicated boxes for years now.. and yes it can get pricey,  thats something you know when you go into it and lease the dedicated box.    It's not hard to find 3 or more people to go in on a dedicated box with you and split up the costs.

Put a donate link on your website, give em a reason to go to the site and hope for the best... but expect to cover it yourself for the most part.

despite all the complaints the tremulous community admins do the best job they can keeping the gaming experience good for everyone and keeping greifers out.  Imagine if there was financial incentive to put up a server... it would be like spam servers.. Would spammers just throw up crap servers for the ad revenue?  

**Stops to play.. Heading over to the Penis Enlargement Server***

Many game hosts will host Tremulous if you just ask them, even though it's not on their 'list' of games they host.  Typically going through a game host is significantly cheaper than a dedicated box.. And for clans, many times they will 'sponsor' your server in exchange for putting 'powered by ACME Hosting' in the name somewhere.

I think keeping financial gain out of the picture for this game will keep the community healthy and strong.

**Now heading over to the Viagra server... See ya there! **

[Caveman]

Besides the points already given.
I'd like to add that exchanging the textures is a bad thing. The maps might be OSS, but the creator still have a copyright on them and that includes the Textures .) so you just might run into a legal trap there.

Another thing... when i play, I have loads more to do than to read some crap on a texture, no matter how big it is. To get me to visit a site it takes more than a buzz word or an url i see somewhere.

Then you also have the problem of the textures not really fitting into the map and taking away the game fun which inturn would be bad for the advertiser as he would get negative feed back and thus negate all you try to do...

As for me... those servers I find to be using the spam-script, I will not be using.

[PIE]

Please.. no more ads..
There isn't a server crisis to the point where we have to do this I don't think. If you start throwing ads at me i'm going elsewhere.

Also.. question your logic behind asking people who play a FREE OPENSOURCE game to pony up money.

[|Nex|TrEmMa]

I say we turn Tremulous into a giant pop-up flash game ad.  "Defeat the aliens and win a free iPod!"

[StVald]

You guys and your overrating of pristine gaming environments. I said that this was specifically for SST, and it does not matter what servers you want to frequent. SST will have a large following regardless of you, or ads. And if you don't pay attention to ads anyway, why should it matter. Its not about getting players absorbed by ads, but about getting funding for the server. The ads would be filtered, we would only put up appropriate ads. And we would consult the map designers for permission. And since when is Tremulous not an environment that supports the ads. 3/4 of the maps are in some futuristic facility or another and quite plausibly can have electronic displays hanging off walls. I also never said anything about making a profit from this. Sorry for the angst, but its just hard for me to see a server Ive spent so much time on go down like this.

Also.. question your logic behind asking people who play a FREE OPENSOURCE game to pony up money.

That's exactly why ads would be a more viable alternative.

[^Black]

SST may be shut down soon because donations just aren't cutting it.

Oh, no! What will we ever do now that SST cant take the noobs off our other servers?!?!

[Revenant]

Well i am going to answer this just for the sake of answering, because i think i know a way. Nobody spam me for supporting ads or anything, im just doing this for the fun of figuring it out.

I would make your own map, or get somebody to make there map available to you for doing this. I think the coolest would be a city with billboards. Name the billboard textures something simple, like "billboard1". Next, make a pk3, that starts with the letter z and a number (ie. z1_mapname.pk3). Just put the texture for the ad you want in that pk3, and name it billboard1. The engine loads the pk3s in alphabetical order (i think), so this should overwrite the old texture. When you wanna switch, just make a new pk3 "z2_mapname.pk3" with the new texture.

It is a very ugly way of doing it, and people might get pissed for getting a new pk3 everytime you switch textures, but it should work

[StVald]

Thanks for the suggestion but redownloading maps for every new ad would not be worth it. That would really stop people from coming back. But I'll wait for a reply from the ad company. If they say its OK to use the same ad for a month, then this might be doable. Downloading once a month isn't that bad.

[Basilisco]

Updated

The easiest and smartest solution would be to make ad-sponsored maps. For example, the mapper would talk to a company (or companies)  to pay you him/herdo a map and include their ads.

-The mapper will get a one time payment for the map.
-Then another contract will have to be made with a server to make sure the map gets used (this is where the server gains).The time the maps stays in rotation would be ser by the server and the company.
-The map will be licensed in such way that it doesn't allow modification of it. Otherwise the company wouldn't be sure that is a good investment.

How does Tremulous get money? well, it doesn't get any money directly really. Either the mapper or the server would give a part of what they get to the project (if they are not unthankful bastards of course).

--------
Aaand there's always the possibility of a temporary contract. The mapper could make a version of the map with ads and not realease the ad-less version until the contract is over and unlikely to be renewed.

[Caveman]

... I said that this was specifically for SST, and it does not matter what servers you want to frequent. SST will have a large following regardless of you, or ads...

Then shut up already, you are on the from forum. Take this silly notion to the SST-Forum.
If you really think SST has such a large group of followers, then there is no worry, as Paradox already begged for some monetary support.

[StVald]

You don't have to be so harsh, I was just asking for the knowledge some mappers might have of the possibility of this so we can avoid the problem with donations. I don't understand why you have attack my idea when I can shutup in a much better mood if you told me nicely that this is not possible at the moment.

[LinuxManMikeC]

Just my 2 cents... or maybe $2

Thanks for the suggestion but redownloading maps for every new ad would not be worth it.

No, not downloading maps when ads change, just downloading a new PK3 with the new ad textures.  Should be verry small, as long as you don't have a crap load of ads.  I've seen texture replacement (not for ads) in Enemy Territory, but not sure how it worked.  Sounds like this z_something.pk3 thing would work, won't hurt to experiment.  You could also isolate your server stuff by creating an SST "mod" so that all your ad stuff doesn't interfere with other maps.  Note, you wouldn't need to mod the gameplay, just creating a pseudo mod that contains your ad pk3 files.  All maps that are loaded into tremulous/base would still be available to play.  No need to alter any maps.  Still a good idea though to check the licenseing of the maps and consult with the creators of them.

Sorry if anyone is offended by my helping with this ad idea.  I just saw an intriguing problem and had a nagging urge to solve it .


Now, as for those of you who think it isn't in the spirit of FOSS to do this ad stuff...  IMHO (or not, take your pick) I see no problem with this idea.  Stallman himself has expressed that there is room for business in free software.  Yeah, the game is free (beer and speech), but what SST is doing is offering a service in addition to the free game.  With no public Internet game servers the game would suck!  Yeah, there are plenty of other game servers that would never do ads, but SST apparently doesn't have the money to throw away.  It has also been stated that this isn't "for profit", just to cover operational costs.  I see no problem with what SST is doing.

Now, as for others jumping on the bandwagon of advertising in Tremulous for profit... if you don't like it, don't play those servers!  What I see in FOSS is freedom, and with the ads, a free market.  If not enough people play the server then there is no money being made.  The for profit ad based servers will shut down!  You have the ultimate choice, play the servers with ads or without, but let each person decide which they want.

[vcxzet]

why dont you stick an ad on the human models ass

[LinuxManMikeC]

why dont you stick an ad on the human models ass

LOL, that would work better if there were female marines in the game .  Unless you "swing that way" ... or you are a girl.

This brings up another aspect of my views... I do think advertising gets out of hand all too often.  All kinds of subversive psychological manipulation to make you think you "need" a product.  If I ever did any kind of advertising in anything, not just a game like this, I would be responsible about how I did it.  Of course going back to free markets, its up to the viewers of ads to not be mindless imbiciles.  I can tell when an ad is attempting to manipulate me, so then I ignore it, change the channel, walk away, etc...

I would follow these guidelines in doing ads in a game like this:
1 - Don't flood the map with ads!!!  It will distract from the environment and gameplay.  It is also annoying!  And you will have to be careful about which textures you choose to override as the wrong ones could turn 50% of the map into an ad!  Place them carefully, like replacing the Tremulous vending machines with a real soft drink texture, or using those billboards on Transit.
2 - Don't use subversive ads!!!  Don't manipulate people with excessive emotion, sex, impossible goals, etc...  Even though people should be smart enough to know you're full of crap, apparently the majority of our population is "mentally challenged".
3 - Well... I thought I had a 3rd one, maybe I'll remember later :-?

[StVald]

I thank you for your reply LinuxMan, that kind of constructive, multi approach post was what I was looking for. And of course as I said earlier we would choose the most appropriate ads and only have around 5 ad displays per map. I'm just wondering if someone can confirm if its possible to use a separate pk3 for map textures and the main pk3 contains map geometry.

why dont you stick an ad on the human models ass

It would have your face on there with large text saying: KICK ME

I'm only kidding of course , you are still my hero vcxzet.

[LinuxManMikeC]

StVald,
Yeah, you definitely can have textures in separate PK3s from the map.  Just a question of if you can override the textures already assigned in a map.  Or at least it was a question.  I decided to test it out for ya .  You can thank me later (have paypal, pm me... j/k ).

Screenshot:


So there is an order to how PK3s are loaded.  When there are name collisions with 2 or more PK3s the last one loaded is used.

Order of PK3 loading rules:
1 - official tremulous base dir
2 - user's tremulous base dir
3 - mod dir

In each of the directories the PK3s are loaded in alphabetical order.

So if you use the pseudo mod idea any textures that are put in the mod dir will trump all.  This should also work with certain shader effects.  All you have to do is make sure your overriding PK3s are parsed after the map you want to use them in.

[tuple]

why dont you stick an ad on the human models ass

LOL

I suspect you will run into problems with mappers, or the licenses.  I seem to recall that much of it is under the creative commons license.  One thing I noticed in particular, is this aspect of the creative commons license.  You may need to dig through all of teh textures, etc, to make sure none of it uses this clause on a per map basis.  I know that mappers will use textures wherever they can find them as creating your own for each map can be time consuming.  

It does seem to me that if you include adds in a map that contains material licensed under the CC with the non-commercial clause that you will run into trouble.  There may be other aspects of the CC license that will cause you problems, but I don't know it that well.  Someone at SST will want to read up on the CC license.

What I mean to say is, asking the mappers may not be enough.  If they used textures that are licensed under the CC, you may need to ask permission from those copyright holders as well.  Of course, the contents of the .pk3 files should hold any CC license attributions, so you would start there.  

[David]

Also, wouldn't you have to release the ad under the CC license?

[Survivor]

Exceeding the fact that if you use such a construction on a map it will be like that on any server running the map.

[LinuxManMikeC]

Exceeding the fact that if you use such a construction on a map it will be like that on any server running the map.

Not if they make an SST mod to separate the ad textures from the main game.  To see their ads a server would have to run that mod.  It would also make it easy for players to clean up leftover PK3s, just delete the SST mod dir.


As for the CC license, yeah, it's likely the ad itself would need to be CC.  It was stated in this thread http://tremulous.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=748 that to have your entire work licensed under the CC license + share-alike clause, if you want it included as an 'official' tremulous map.  Says nothing about the non-commercial clause there.  The share-alike clause requires that derivitives are licensed under an identical license.  So if someone used anything that was share-alike only, they couldn't add the non-commercial clause to their map.  I guess it would be safe to do this voodoo to the official maps and any maps that use the same license, but the advertisers would have to give you ad images under the same license.

Now if you made a few of your own maps or got special permission for a few maps, you could just intersperse those ad enabled maps amongst your map rotation.

[Mikiupdown2]

why dont you stick an ad on the human models ass

Slight modification: Why not have female hummies and stick the ads on their boobs? And ass of course.

Or mabey their clothes could be one big (semi-transparent) ad?

[Ingar]

As I understand it (IANAL) making a texture-mod would not be in violation of the CC-license. The license only covers derivate works,
so I guess it only applies if you're actually altering the map files. Of course, the discussion here lies in the meaning of the word 'derivate work'.

Also, I think it is possible for different files in a .pk3 to have different licenses. e.g. using CC-licensed textures in a map with a different license. It would depend on wheter 'the work' applies to the map/bsp file only or the entire pk3.

More important than all this silly lawyertalk is how people would feel:
personally, I object to the idea. I certainly wouldn't like someone to alter my map by putting some advertisements in it. Maps don't come free either: it takes many hours to create a good map and If I could have charged by the hour, I would have been a rich man by now.

I understand this won't solve your money problem. The only thing I can do about it is to put SST on to my list with Christmas donations and hope this will prevent you from having to go through with all kinds of crazy plans just to keep the server running.

[jal]

I'm not against ingame adds, but imo, ingame adds money belongs to Trem devels.